


to bleed means that we yet live

by lovelikerain611



Category: Spartacus Series (TV)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-24
Updated: 2016-01-24
Packaged: 2018-05-15 23:34:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5804674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovelikerain611/pseuds/lovelikerain611
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's always been Duro who has saved him, in the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	to bleed means that we yet live

Ten year old Duro finds fights instead of friendship with the boys of their village and Agron scrapes him off of the ground one day after he's been beaten into it, black eye swelling and lip bleeding sluggishly.

Duro is too dark, too foreign, and while the others would whisper that he was a bastard, a son of a whore and a marauding Syrian, Agron has never seen anything but his little brother.

 

(When Agron was three, he remembers only his mother, sweat-soaked and red-faced, brushing a finger against the small, screaming bundle that his Agron's brother, though he does not know him as such yet. His mother cried bitter tears and pressed her lips against Agron's forehead, pulling him into her sweaty embrace to look down at Duro. _You must keep him forefront in your thoughts, always,_  she says into Agron's hair. _He will have naught but us, Agron._  )

 

Fingers careful of his brother's torn skin, Agron holds cloth to the wound. "To bleed means that we yet live," he says gently and Duro jerks back from his touch.

 

"Do not mock."

 

"I would not."

 

Duro does not speak further. Agron mends what can be mended and beats the other boys into the dirt until one of the village elders pulls him off.

 

"You will never lay fucking hand on him again," he spits at their feet, and they do not.

 

Later, Duro wraps skinny fingers around his brother's wrist, dark skin against light. Still brothers, Agron thinks and looks up at the younger boy.

 

"You saved me."

 

Agron hates the surprise in his voice. "You are my brother. Never doubt that I will protect or save you with last breath."

 

Duro smiles. The world lights.

 

**

When he is fourteen, on his first raid, Duro gets jumped by a fucking Gaul from out of the bush. Agron rips the Gaul off his brother and breaks the man's neck with his bare hands. The sound Duro makes when Agron scoops him up makes Agron's throat close around the words he tells the bleeding, broken boy in his arms.

 

Propped up on his cot, Duro looks up at Agron through black eyes and swollen nose, and he grins around a mouth of broken teeth. "Would I could have seen you break him, brother."

 

"A sight to been seen, I'm sure," Agron says mildly, sitting down on the edge of the cot. "How fares the invalid? Mother carried on so--I thought to find your corpse." (Agron pretends the words don't feel a little too close to the truth.)

 

"To bleed means that we yet live," Duro echoes the words chanted a thousand times to him by his brother. "I find proof that I am yet very much alive." The words are mild, but Agron can read the exhaustion in his little brother's shoulders and the lines on his face and he offers Duro a smile.

 

"Saved you again."

 

"You are my brother," he replies simply.

 

"I am." He presses lips to Duro's forehead and Duro's eyes droop. Agron closes his eyes, closes out his brother bleeding out on the ground and exhales softly. "Take to dreams, Duro."

 

He is already sleeping.

 

**

"It was hunting accident, nothing more."

 

"It was fucking careless." Agron is seven shades of rage and Duro has watched him go through all of them in quickest succession--from pale to purple in moments.

 

"As though you and I have never been careless." Duro shifts and winces when Agron prods the slash on his upper arm moodily. "He meant no harm, Agron."

 

Agron does not respond. "They have been told not to lay fucking hand on you."

 

"This was arrow, not hand."

 

Agron turns a shade darker and turns towards his younger brother, nostrils flared and eyes wide in rage. "I will strike tongue from mouth!"

 

Duro laughs. "Empty threats fall on amused ears, brother." He waits as Agron turns back to the gash, pinching the skin together. "Agron, to bleed--"

 

"Means we yet live, yes, Duro, and you have bled enough to prove that we both yet live."

 

"Wise words echoed to me by sage tongue."

 

"You mock."

 

"Only your anger. Hunting accident, Agron, and naught more. Do not dwell."

 

Agron looks up at the sixteen year old. "Would that it had been me, not you."

 

Duro rolls his eyes. "Yes, very fucking noble."

 

'Watch tongue."

 

"It breaks words ears yet hear echoed." Duro pauses and then sits up, glancing down at arm. "What is it you say, brother? Scars tell the story of a man?"

 

"Your story yet lasts too long and you are yet sixteen," Agron grumbles and stands, having determined that Duro would live.

 

"Like my cock."

 

The blow to the back of his head is met by Duro's laughter.

 

**

Duro has been quiet since they'd landed in such sour luck as the ludus. The first words he breaks are at the peak of the night, when neither of them are sleeping. "Do you think she despairs?"

 

  
_Their mother_. Yes, of course, Agron wants to say. Yes of fucking course she despairs; their mother worries they will neglect to ever return when they are moments, hours late. It has been months.

 

"You know answer."

 

Duro is quiet again, and then rolls, dark skin against the floor. "Agron--"

 

"Still tongue on subject. Dwelling does not erase what fates have seen to pass."

 

Duro's fingers on his arm--dark skin against pale. "Agron."

 

"Still tongue, Duro! I yet rest!" Agron turns and he can feel Duro's eyes on his back until the day breaks new.

 

**

It is not the first time he has ever wrenched a fucking Gaul off of his brother, and Agron throws Crixus hard enough that he knows Crixus will exact revenge as the day grows later, but for the moment, all he takes concern with is Duro's bleeding face. He reaches and Duro pulls back.

 

"You coddle!" he spits, shoving Agron's hand away. "I need no nursemaid, Agron!"

 

"Duro--"

 

"I seek only to see my brother's will met--that I bring glory and honor however I may with my life, short as it may be," Duro spits, echoing the twisted version of his brother's words, said in anger.

 

"Duro, I broke words in anger, you know--"

 

"I know only that I am disappointment upon brother, stain upon earth," Duro bites out. "And--" he spits a red stream onto the dirt. "I yet live--by whatever fucking gods curse, I yet fucking live. Would that the gods had seen fit to see me to afterlife before I brought such _dishonor_  upon noble brother's name."

 

Agron does not apologize; Duro does not press. The argument is forgotten, but Agron still sees shadows of it in his brother's eyes.

 

**

Duro's breathing is wrong--it's all wrong and there's so much fucking blood-- _to bleed means you yet live_ , he thinks, foolishly, because Duro's life is bubbling up through his fingers faster than Agron can ever, ever fix.

 

And Duro smiles--he _smiles_ , the world is ending and Duro is smiling, head in Agron's lap, fingers colored Duro's red red red blood, light fading too fast from his eyes. "I save you this time," he says, and all Agron can do is laugh, and it turns to tears as he presses his lips against Duro's forehead. "I save you this time, brother," he chokes, and stills.

 

But he's wrong, they're both wrong. Duro hasn't saved him this time at all, because it's always been Duro who's saved him, in the end.


End file.
